Bill Wade, Post-Gazette photos Tommy Morrison, left, with public relations agent Lisa Woodard, will fight tomorrow against John Castle (4-2) at Mountaineer Race Track & Gaming Resort.

By Chuck Finder
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette CHESTER, W.Va. -- Tommy Morrison has been in the grandest rings (two heavyweight championship belts), in prison ("14 months, eight days, six hours and 46 minutes" on drug and weapons charges), in the movies ("Rocky V") and in the clustered community of people living with HIV. Yesterday, he surfaced in West Virginia's northern panhandle, declaring himself virus-free, preparing himself to restart a boxing career dormant for more than a decade tomorrow night at Mountaineer Race Track & Gaming Resort.

"I'm going to hit him so hard, his grandchildren will have headaches," said Morrison, 38, of his ring return tomorrow at The Harv against Indianapolis' John Castle (4-2).

Then he grew serious. "But I don't want to look overanxious. I don't want to look like I haven't fought in 10¹/₂ years. This is the first leg of a journey that's going to be the greatest adventure I've ever been on."

The West Virginia Boxing Commission yesterday approved Morrison (46-3-1), who last fought Nov. 3, 1996, and Joe Mesi (33-0) of Buffalo, N.Y., who spent two years away from boxing because a subdural hematoma from a 2004 fight that led to the suspension of his license to box in the United States.

Former WBO champion and "Rocky V" co-star Tommy Morrison, 38, has been approved to return to the ring today at Mountaineer Race Track & Gaming Resort. Click photo for larger image.

Morrison initially tested positive for HIV in a pre-fight physical in 1996 and blamed that on promiscuity.

Yesterday, though, he repeated a later assertion that he it came up a "false positive" then and at least once later because he took steroid injections.

He said that a litany of blood tests since, mainly upon starting his comeback last year, have been negative -- including a DNA examination.

"The bottom line is, it isn't there," said Morrison, who added that once he considered suing Nevada and U.S. boxing officials along with contemplating other discriminatory claims. "My health has been fine. Nothing has ever changed. Other than them taking away my right to make a living."

Chairman Steve Allred and his five-member, $20,000-budget West Virginia Boxing Commission agreed that Morrison and Mesi, who waged a court battle to resume his ring career, are fit to fight tomorrow night in this Comeback Night card televised on the Versus Network.

"There's no reason for this commission to keep him out of the ring," Allred said of Morrison. And "there is no material evidence before me that indicates [Mesi] should not fight."

Morrison sat down to meet the media yesterday while wearing sunglasses, diamond earrings, an Arizona tan, a scratch of beard and thinning dishwater-blond hair -- a vast difference from the Adonis of a decade ago. Yet when he yanked off his black T-shirt, he sported the arms and ripped 226-pound physique of the International Boxing Council and World Boxing Organization champ of the early to mid-1990s.

After having two more children through HIV-avoiding procedures, he did prison time, watched his Oklahoma ranch burn in a fire and mulled over a boxing comeback. He started his return in a Phoenix gym 10 months ago, after seeing a James Toney he likened to the shape of a "38-year-old truck driver" win a heavyweight belt.

Then he convinced Bob Arum and Top Rank to represent him.

"It's a dead issue," he said of the HIV tests, his past decade.

"Let's get on with it. I think I'll be a better fighter this time. The last 10 years I've been healthy while everybody else was getting beat up. I'm like the at girl at the prom: I'm just happy to be here."